Unexpected

"Is it just me, or is this where our lives are
going to end?" I asked
sarcastically.
"Shhhhhhhh," hissed Chad. "She'll hear you!"
"We're as good as dead if she finds us here, you
idiots!" Jonathan also
hissed quietly. "So do you want to do this or
not?"
"Not." I said.
"Shut-up Alex!"
"Shut-up, both of you! We can't go home tomorrow
without doing this! The
train leaves tomorrow night!" argued Jonathan.
We were crouching under the window of the old
Victorian house. It was
tall, dark, and very creepy. I, even now, don't
understand why we were
there, and what the heck persuaded me to listen
to that old beggar in the
street.
She had singled me and my lost friends out
among all of the other
people coursing through the small, narrow
sidewalks of Demi City. Demi
City was so small, on a map, hundreds of Demi
Cities could fit on the tip
of a pen. You could walk from the edge of the
city to the end in about 20
minutes. But that couldn't explain why in
whatever direction we walked,
we couldn't get out.
The old woman had been picking through trash.
She had smelled of it.
She had invited us up to her house to eat and
tell us our way out of the
city. We were hungry and we must have been
extremely desperate to even
bother with someone like that. We said yes after
about 10 seconds of
thought, all together. I felt a pressure in my
head to say yes, so I did.
But as I sat with my friends under the window, I
was having second
thoughts.
"Just why are we here under the window?" I
asked impatiently. Johnny,
on my left, rolled his eyes.
"We need to check out the place, duh," he
said. "So, like, if things
get weird, we can bail. And we'll now how to
escape." I stared at him and
Chad, who was on my right. Chad nodded. I shook
my head and smiled.
"I see. So I wasn't the only one with second
thoughts about this, eh?"
Chad's eyes widened angrily.
"We aren't having second thoughts!" he yelled.
Johnny shushed him. He
nodded.
"We just don't want to be fools. Think about
it. We are here all by
ourselves. We have no money. We have no car. We
have no map. We have no
food. We have no place. WE HAVE NO CLUE! Got it?"
I didn't answer. I was
surprised at how angry and fast he was getting.
So I turned around and
slowly peeked into the window.
"Well, well, well," I whispered to them both.
"It looks like the old
lady doesn't even need to throw her own trash
into the freakin' trashcan!
Look!"
Inside, it was big. I mean, it was HUGE.
There was so much space in
there, it seemed a wonder that it could fit into
the old-looking
Victorian house. Everywhere there were flowers,
portraits, tables,
carpets, and a few maids. They were dressed in
the traditional black
dress with a white apron. They were young, too.
Johnny and Chad whistled
to themselves.
"Woohoo, this lady is probably loaded!" said
Chad obviously.
"My sentiments exactly," I said. "Then why was
she rummaging around in
the city trash, eh? I'm telling you guys, for the
last time, this lady
means trouble! I smell something fishy about
her."
"Oh well," said Jonathan impatiently. "We are
going in there to get
help, not to ask her for her life savings! What
would you expect from an
old lady?"
"Trouble," I said plainly. They both glared at
me, then peeked back
into the house. Chad stood a little and tried to
lift the old fashioned
window sill. It moved easily. They both sighed,
and Chad sat down again.
Jonathan nodded.
"Let's go."
I nodded also. "Don't want to leave DEATH
waiting." Neither one of them
commented to me and crouched as they passed the
windows to the front
door. I followed cautiously, and eyed the black
roses close to the
doorstep. They didn't seem to stay one color:
more like stay black, turn
dark green, then dark blue, and other different
colors. Of course, my
'friends' didn't notice. They knocked on the door
together, and a
beautiful dark-haired woman with a deep velvet
dress on. She smiled
warmly to Chad and Jonathan. They grinned back at
her foolishly.
The woman turned to me and smiled icily, and I
didn't smile back. She
turned away and motioned for us to move into the
house. Chad and
Jonathan, already chained in by her beauty and
charm, didn't take half a
second to think about not going in. They just
went. I followed slowly and
looked at the woman's eyes. She turned away
before I could get a good
look, and left me to shut the door and follow. I
shut the door and went
on.
We had looked inside of the house before. But
when I went farther in,
not a thing a remember seeing through the window
was in sight. There were
dark corners everywhere, and it looked like a
haunted house. And there
were no windows whatsoever. The woman had somehow
speed-walked ahead of
the guys and turned around to stop them.
"Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here," the
woman said to all of us,
standing appealingly on the deep red carpet. A
sweetly familiar smell
wafted to my nose. My stomach growled fiercely.
"I have heard your
predicament, and I have decided to come to your
attention. First, we will
have our feast, then we will see what we can do."
She began to move to
her left around a corner.
"We?" I whispered, inching up to Chad and
Johnny. "How can it be 'we'? I
don't see anybody else here." And it was the
truth. Not even a maid that
we had spotted before was in sight. Chad waved my
question away.
"The lady's feeding us in the middle of the
night, so WHO CARES?!" he
said. He looked at me directly, finally ignoring
the beautiful woman
leading him to food. "You really need food,
buddy. You haven't been
looking so good."
I touched my growling stomach and patted his
shoulder, speaking sadly.
I put my hand on his shoulder. "Well, it's been
nice knowin' ya'. After
the feast, I'm sure that we will never be the
same again."
"Oh, put a sock in it and come on," said Johnny
impatiently. "I'm
hungry."
I shrugged. "Ok. Your choice."
The woman led us into a huge dining hall, most
of which was dark.
Instead of being the brightly lit room we thought
it was, it was
contrarily so. Candles were in a few corners,
including the long stretch
of the dining table. She motioned for us to sit
next to her, me being 2nd
chair on the left, Johnny beside me, Chad across
from me, and the woman
at the head of the table, next to me on the other
side. After we were
seated, the woman clapped her hands together and
the candles brightened
to show the table covered with hot, steamy food
cast in shadows.
Pot roast, filet mignon, beef, steak, turkey,
chicken, salad, macaroni,
cole slaw, and the works were immediately
assaulted by Jonathan and Chad.
Idiots, I said to myself. They gulped down the
food as I watched the
woman watching them. A certain gleam seemed to
arise in the pits of her
pupils as she watched my buddies gorge themselves
on the food. Almost as
soon as it had appeared, it disappeared, Chad and
Johnny sighing happily
to themselves. Johnny decided to take up actual
conversation.
"So, you live here all alone?"
"Yes," I answered for her. "Because she's a
witch."
The woman looked at me, startled. "What?"
"Witch," I continued," W I T C H. Or does it
start with a B?"
She stood and looked angrily at me. "I beg your
pardon?" She paused and
thought. "How did you know?" I stood also and
grinned at her. She moved
back a step. Smart.
"Well, it looks like a haunted house--It smells
like a haunted
house--The floor is covered in blood and I don't
like you. Your witch's
potion to lure young boys into your home is
weak."
She screamed viciously. "Well then, boy, watch
while I devour your
friend over here. Haaaaa......" She suddenly
became taller, and her skin
turned a sickly green. Claws inched from her
nails, and she grabbed
Jonathan. He let her realize what clearly healthy
lungs he had. She
devoured him whole. I watched.
"Weak," I repeated. "Watch a master. Here,
witch!" And unknown to her
a force dragged her screaming and hovering in front
of me. My eyes burned
and reflected in her empty ones. "I'm no boy. A
3,000 year old deserves
better. Hiyaaaa, I want your blood!" Pointy,
long, sharp, professional
fangs slid down from my K-9s. They sank softly
into her vile throat. She
screamed and clawed at me as I sucked her dry. I
dropped her shrunken
body onto the ground. Chad stared at me in
absolute horror. Then he
sighed.
"Thank you for keeping me from being eaten," he
breathed. I cocked an
eyebrow. "You were right. We'll never be the
same, eh?" I nodded.
"Correct." I grabbed him and pulled him to me,
his shocked brain giving
in before he even reached me. I sucked him dry,
and left his body on top
of the woman who ate his friend, then turned down
all of the candles,
walking off into the night for another victim,
for I was very hungry, and
letting the house burn mysteriously to the ground
with their bodies.